What is New About Selma?
H., I.
The murder of a human being is never to be dismissed, especially of one like the Rev. Reeb. Yet that is not new, and probably it will happen again, many times, before the Negro liberation...
...What is new and overwhelming is that the movement has penetrated to the heart of the Black Belt, the core of racist mania...
...Yet that is not new, and probably it will happen again, many times, before the Negro liberation movement gains its complete victory...
...Sheriff Clark wore a button saying "Never...
...Yet that too is not new, and probably will happen again...
...But the President's speech and his proposals show how much has already been achieved through democratic pressure...
...I. H...
...King expresses the democratic aspirations of his people, shows courage in battle, and shrewdness in tactics...
...The movement has deepened its roots, strengthened its support, caught up in its passion the most exploited and humiliated of American Negroes...
...For through the Selma struggle, the movement has again ignited the moral feelings of the 148 country and virtually forced the federal government to press for a new voting bill...
...Whoever may have written it, Dr...
...and they lay the groundwork for still further mass activity and participation...
...Noise has come from certain "advisors," marxoid ide ologues and nationalist adventurers who use the word "militancy" as if it were a magic wand or who indulge themselves in irresponsible chatter about violence...
...That is a great event...
...And it confirms, in our judgment, the soundness of the policies it has adopted—policies that anticipate a di vision of labor between, say, SCLC and SNCC and allow for differences over tactics among the participating groups...
...but once again it is clear that whatever mistakes he may make (and he has a right to them, he has earned that right...
...As always, the extent to which a voting law is enforced will depend on the unrelenting pressures applied by the movement and its allies...
...President Johnson's speech on March 16 was a remarkable performance...
...There Negro resistance has quickly shown itself to be a mass movement, embracing thousands of people without any previous experience in politics or protest...
...Speaking of allies: it was good to see union leaders like Walter Reuther and Charles Zimmerman join the Selma protest...
...The Negro people of Selma are insisting that "Never" means "Now...
...in its brilliant use of the clergy as leaders and spokesmen...
...which seems to us far more consequential than the fact that Johnson's ghostwriters are less suave than Kennedy's were...
...Loosely structured though it may be, the Negro movement does have a unique character: it comes from the experience of the participants them selves...
...The wanton brutallty of sheriffs gives more than enough cause for the revulsion it has created...
...in its toler ance of a range of inner tendencies— in such ways, the movement has shown great resourcefulness...
...As if to mock the legend of ingrained passivity and with one gesture whip off the mask of accepted inferiority, the Negroes of the Black Belt have proven themselves adept at the art of demonstrating: it seems to come naturally...
...in the moral and tactical gains it has won from strict non-vio lence...
...King and his colleagues were right there behind the writer, prodding his elbow...
...In its variations upon passive resistance...
...No president in recent history —certainly (let liberals note) not John F. Kennedy—has so completely accepted in public the goals, the very language, of the Negro movement...
...the point is to act as if he is, for his public stand will have enormous consequences...
...Whether the President is "sincere" matters little...
Vol. 12 • April 1965 • No. 2
